The Atlas Bear is deemed to
be the only recent (contemporary) bear native to the African continent and
is sometimes regarded as a subspecies of the brown bear, sometimes as a
distinct species.

It was a smaller form, strictly speaking it was the smallest of the
subspecies of the brown bear.

Bear bones are already known from pleistocene depositions of North Africa,
they were described as Ursus arctos faidherbi (Bourguignat) resp.
Ursus faidherbi (Bourguignat). In several caves in the Algerian
Djurdjura Mountains, in addition, relatively fresh bones were found, which
definitely date back to historical times.

It is a well known fact, that during the time of the Roman Empire, various
wild animals, among them also brown bears, were captured for exhibition
fights, it is quite certain, that among them also some Atlas Bears may
have been.

In the year 1830 (at a time, when the subspecies was yet not
scientifically described) the Zoo of Marseille / France exhibited a living
Atlas Bear, which it obtained from the then Moroccan Sultan, Mawlay 'Abd
al-Rahman, as a present.

The exact extinction date is still absolutely uncertain, whereas
over-hunting is quite possibly one of the major reasons for it.